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Like hardly any other thinker of the modern age, Hannah Arendtss thought offers us timeless insights into the fabric of the modern age, especially regarding the perennial danger of totalitarianism. This course offers an in-depth introduction to Arendt's most important works in their various contexts, as well as a consideration of their reverberations in contemporary philosophy and literature. Readings include Arendt's
The Origin of Totalitarianism,
The Human Condition, Between Past and Future,
Men in Dark Times,
On Revolution,
Eichmann in Jerusalem, and
The Life of the Mind, as well as considerations of Hannah Arendt's work by Max Frisch, Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, Giorgio Agamben, and others. Special attention will be given to Arendt's writings on literature with emphasis on Kafka, Brecht, Auden, Sartre, and Camus.

COMPLIT 260B:Love and Negativity in Medieval Persian Mysticism

An analysis of apophatic discourses of love in medieval Persian mystical texts, 800-1300 AD. The philosophical underpinnings and implications of Sufi thought are discussed in this course. The principal aim, however, is to shed light on the radical poetic force of the Persian texts. Topics to be addressed include the fundamentally oral, temporal nature of mystic speech; the relation of the speaking I to the unknown and unknowable Other; the discourse of love in which God and the beloved are one; the linguistic fragmentation of mystical discourse, straining against the edges of meaning; the possibility of salvaging mystical experience in language; and, finally, the question of apophasis as a theologically and politically subversive act. Primary readings include texts on and by Bayazid Bastami (800-874), Mansur al-Hallaj (857-922), Ayn al-Qozat al-Hamadani (1098-1131), Ruzbihan Baqli (1128-1209), Farid al-Din Attar (1145/46-1221), Shahab ad-Din al-Suhrawardi (1154-1191), and Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273). These texts will be complemented by readings from Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Michel de Certeau, Jacques Derrida, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Emmanuel Levinas, and Paul Ricoeur, among others. Taught in English.

CSRE 1T:The Public Life of Science and Technology (STS 1)

The course focuses on key social, cultural, and values issues raised by contemporary scientific and technological developments through the STS interdisciplinary lens by developing and applying skills in three areas: (a) The historical analysis of contemporary global matters (e.g., spread of technologies; climate change response); (b) The bioethical reasoning around health issues (e.g., disease management; privacy rights); and (c) The sociological study of knowledge (e.g., intellectual property, science publishing). A discussion section is required and will be assigned the first week of class.

How can art facilitate a culture that values women, mothers, transfolks, caregivers, girls? How can black, indigenous, and people of color frameworks help us reckon with oppressive systems that threaten safety and survival for marginalized people and the lands that sustain us? How can these questions reveal the brilliant and inventive forms of survival that precede and transcend harmful systems toward a world of possibility? Each week, this course will call on artists, scholars, and organizers of color who clarify the urgency and interconnection of issues from patriarchal violence to environmental degradation; criminalization to legacies of settler colonialism. These same thinkers will also speak to the imaginative, everyday knowledge and creative healing practices that our forebears have used for millennia to give vision and rise to true transformation.

Movies and the fiction that inspires them; power dynamics behind production including historical events, artistic vision, politics, and racial stereotypes. What images of black and white does Hollywood produce to forge a national identity? How do films promote equality between the races? What is lost or gained in film adaptations of books? NOTE: Students must attend the first day; admission to the class will be determined based on an in class essay.

CSRE 51Q:Comparative Fictions of Ethnicity (AMSTUD 51Q, COMPLIT 51Q)

We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"? Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take course for a Letter Grade.

This seminar concerns the design and analysis of imaginary (or constructed) worlds for narratives and media such as films, comics, and literary texts. The seminar's primary goal is to help participants understand the creation of better imaginary worlds - ultimately all our efforts should serve that higher purpose. Some of the things we will consider when taking on the analysis of a new world include: What are its primary features - spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? What is the world's ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? What are the precise strategies that are used by the artist to convey the world to us and us to the world? How are our characters connected to the world? And how are we - the viewer or reader or player - connected to the world? Note: This course must be taken for a letter grade to be eligible for WAYS credit.

This introduction to dance studies course explores dance practice and performance as means for producing cultural meaning. Through theoretical and historical texts and viewing live and recorded dance, we will develop tools for analyzing dance and understanding its place in social, cultural, and political structures. This uses dance and choreography as a lens to more deeply understand a wide range of identity and cultural formations, such as gender, race, sexuality, (dis)ability, (trans)nationality, and empire. We will analyze dancing bodies that move across stages, dance clubs, film screens, and border zones. We will examine dance from diverse locales and time periods including ballet, modern and contemporary dance, contact improvisation, folkloric dance, burlesque, street dance, queer club dance, drag performance, music videos, TV dance competitions, and intermedia/new media performance. In addition to providing theoretical and methodological grounding in dance studies, this course develops performance analysis skills and hones the ability to write critically and skillfully about dance. No previous experience in dance is necessary to successfully complete the course.

Violence and trauma isolates and segregates us. Part of the healing process must be about coming back into community. Freedom is meaningful only insofar as it lifts all, especially those who have been done the most harm. In times of violence and polarization, art can heal and brings people together. In this course, we will explore how we make and sustain community, especially in the face of threats from within and without. We will do this especially through examining how artists and culture workers of color develop and advance practices that build mutuality, criticality, renewal, trust, and joy in the face of ongoing racial injustice and cultural inequity.

The course examines the mediums of public art that have been voices of social change, protest and expressions of community desire in Iran. It will offer a unique glimpse into Iran's contemporary art and visual culture through the investigation of public art practices such as graffiti and street art, as well as older traditions of oral storytelling such as Naghali and Iranian Coffeehouse Painting. Iranian case studies will be expanded in comparison with local and global examples, while students examine the infrastructural conditions of public art, such as civic, public, and private funding, relationships with local communities, and the life of these projects as they move in and out of the artworld. This encompassing view anchors a legacy of Iranian cultural contributions in larger trajectories of art history, contemporary art, and community arts practice. The class format is both lecture and art studio practice. Students will propose either new public art works or research to provoke their own ideas while engaging the ever-changing state of public discourse in these case studies.